Resort manager convicted in Korean girl rape

A court in Umaria on Tuesday sentenced a resort manager, Deepak Vishwakarma, to eight years rigorous imprisonment for raping a South Korean girl tourist on January 14 in Tala, Bandhavgarh.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2000 on Vishwakarma. In case of failure to pay the fine, the term of sentence would be extended by three months.

The court also convicted Vishwakarma under sections 7 and 14 of the Foreigners Act, to one year rigorous sentence and imposed a fine of Rs 1000. In case of failure to pay the fine the term of sentence would be extended by a month.

District and sessions judge Akhilesh Pandya found Vishwakarma guilty of raping the girl.

But the court exonerated him from the charges of causing hurt by means of poison, intent to commit an offence under section 328, and causing disappearance of evidence of offence under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), for lack of sufficient material on record to support the charges.

Government advocate Dinesh Tripathi said there was no sufficient material on record to prove the beer served to the foreign tourist was laced with some chemical.

He said all the sentences will run concurrently.

The resort is owned by Dushyant Singh, son of BJP MLA (Gurh - Rewa) Nagendra Singh.

The state police registered the case at the Manpur police station in district Umaria, after receiving the case diary from the Maharashtra police in the matter.

The Korean tourist initially lodged a complaint of rape with the Aurangabad police in Maharashtra, claiming that the incident took place at the resort, located in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Umaria. She was served a bottle of beer to drink and on consuming it, she lost conscious and the act was carried out.